Marx To Paul and Laura Lafargue

March 5, 1870

Here, at home, as you are fully aware, the Fenians’ sway is paramount. Tussy is one of their head centres. Jenny writes on their behalf in the “Marseillaise” under the pseudonym of J. Williams. I have not only treated the same theme in the Brussels “Internationale,” and caused resolutions of the Central Council to be passed against their gaolers. In a circular, addressed by the Council to our corresponding committees, I have explained the merits of the Irish Question.

You understand at once that I am not only acted upon by feelings of humanity. There is something besides. To accelerate the social development in Europe, you must push on the catastrophe of official England. To do so, you must attack her in Ireland. That’s her weakest point. Ireland lost, the British “Empire” is gone, and the class war in England, till now somnolent and chronic, will assume acute forms. But England is the metropolis of landlordism and capitalism all over the world.